


Six-Step Solution

by Noellefics



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hopeful Ending, Post S1 finale, background miles taylor/blair wesley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26354962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noellefics/pseuds/Noellefics
Summary: Post-S1 finale, April realizes she's made a mistake but can't contact Sterling. With Blair as her only communication option, she needs a plan to make Blair hate her less. And Miles is just the low-hanging fruit she's looking for.
Relationships: April Stevens/Sterling Wesley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 163





	Six-Step Solution

She realized she had made a mistake the moment she re-entered the school, but the dread of her choices didn’t fully sink in until later that night.

A quick “I’m sorry” text at three in the morning wasn’t going to fix anything, although April hoped it would serve as an olive branch between them. Receiving an “undelivered” notification back five minutes later wasn’t exactly the best-case scenario.

She knew Sterling hadn’t blocked her—previous ‘Adele’s’ had taught her what that looked like—so she tried sending the message again and again, while walking around different corridors in the building.

An hour later she caved and sent a text to Blair. There was a reply in less than three minutes, albeit far less reassuring than she hoped.

_Glad youre not totally cold hearted_

_Her phone got thrown out of a moving car_

_Things are not ok but shes safe now_

With more questions than answers, April considered next steps. She was an excellent planner and had perfected the art of pushing her feelings into little boxes so she could figure this out. For the next however long until Sterling got a new phone, Blair was going to be her main point of contact. And Blair hated her.

For the longest time, because she was a stuck-up b-word. Not like April could do much about that now. More recently, because she had broken Sterling’s heart. A problem she was working on now, but again, too large to be actionable in the short-term. Also recently, because she and/or Sterling were somehow responsible for Miles breaking up with her.

Blair’s logic on the causality of those events would never hold up in a competitive debate, but she doubted that a slideshow on how correlation does not imply causation would sway her on the fact, no matter how well done.

Besides, perhaps if she could repair Blair’s relationship with Miles, the girl would be more likely to believe that April’s relationship with Sterling could also be repaired. 

She wasn’t a frequent face at the country club, so she didn’t know that much about Miles, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t compile a dossier on him in the three hours before the lock-in concluded. If nothing else, it would keep her busy since she definitely wasn't sleeping tonight, especially not next to Luke. 

* * *

The plan she had concocted on caffeine and heartache wasn’t her best, but she wasn’t about to let precious time slip by with inaction, so she quickly got changed into her street clothes and slipped out of the school before Ellen could catch up with her to have a debrief chat.

The lock-in finished at seven and Miles _thought_ he was scheduled for work at eight, so April pulled into the ‘employees only’ parking at the country club and waited. From what she knew, he was always early, so she hoped she could grab his attention without making a scene.

Sure enough, by 7:40, she saw him get out of his car, and it was time for step one.

“Miles, so good to see you. We need to discuss something of utmost importance.”

“I’d be happy to help you, but I need to go clock in first.”

“Actually, you don’t. The club is under the impression that you called off with a seriously contagious but short-lived stomach bug. I’ll explain more, but I need to talk to you and I’m not against playing dirty to make that happen.”

Miles dropped his customer service voice then, “Look, I don’t even know who you are, and I don’t think you know who I am either so I’d suggest walking away.”

“Ah. Miles Taylor. Son to Senator Taylor, bad habit of sneaking out to college parties and posting about it on a poorly hidden secondary instagram account. Drinking is an activity that can get you expelled with repeated offences at your little catholic school, right?” she paused then, looking around the empty lot, “and I’m April. You broke up with my ex-girlfriend’s sister and somehow that is my fault so I’d appreciate your help in clearing up the matter.”

Miles followed her to her car then but gave her an incredulous look when she prompted him to put on his seatbelt.

“It really would be a shame for such a boundary-breaking senator to get wrapped up into a scandal due to her teenage son’s actions. All I want is for you to go talk to Blair. Just fifteen minutes.”

She looks straight ahead until she hears the seatbelt click, at which point they’re on their way and she’s moved on to step two. The car is silent for a few minutes before Miles speaks up.

“So Sterling is…gay and the two of you dated?”

“She’s more undefined than that. She’s only out to Blair right now so if you even think of telling—”

“I wouldn’t. It’s not my place.”

“Yes. We dated. We broke up because of something that in retrospect could have been solved with communication but well, we didn’t solve it.”

It occurred to her that a less selfish person would ask about his relationship with Blair, but she couldn’t stop the stream of consciousness flowing out of her brain.

“She was so insistent that we come out and I tried to explain why we couldn’t, but it’s like my heart just wanted to make her happy and then my dad came back and any coherent thought process went completely out the window.”

“She wanted to come out, to like, her family?”

“No, the whole community. For better-or-worse, the Wesleys are a bit impulsive, as I’m sure you know. She had it in her head that we’d make it work as if my dad or the school didn’t exist.”

“I’m not going to call your ex stupid, but…that is not a well-thought-out plan. How come Blair blames you for me breaking up with her?”

“I don’t fully get it. Apparently there was a work situation where Blair thought that Sterling was going to cover for her while she was on a date with you but Sterling was on a date with me at the time. Sterling hadn’t told her about us yet and she didn’t take it that well. Not in a homophobic way. Just in a regular hates-my-guts-for-legitimate-reasons way.”

“Damn, we sure know how to pick ‘em. I like Blair, I do, but she was so busy and I always felt like she wasn’t being fully honest with me, you know? I guess I wasn’t fully honest with her either.”

“I do unfortunately know. Blair texted me that Sterling’s phone was thrown out of a moving vehicle last night with zero detail on how that happened. There’s something sketchy going on, although I can’t blame Sterling for not telling me after everything that’s happened.”

They’d reached the Wesley residence now and April was glad that Mr. Wesley’s truck was gone. The plan was so much easier with the adults are out-of-the-house. It was barely eight-thirty and she was already at step three of the plan.

“Ok, you go in and talk to Blair for at least fifteen minutes and then I’ll drive you back to the club and promise to never bother you again. If it’s been more than thirty minutes, I’m assuming you’re back together and she can give you a ride instead.”

“How do you know I’m going to say anything that will help you out with Sterling? I could just sit on the porch for fifteen minutes.”

“Miles, I don’t know you very well, but you’re not dumb based on that 3.84 GPA. You found my insta handle by the time we left the club parking lot. My dad just bribed a judge to drop charges against him. It’s not exactly a great time for my family to be stirring the pot. Sure, I’m blackmailing you but you could stop that in its tracks if you wanted. No, you wouldn’t be here unless you wanted to be.”

April paused then before making her closing statement, hoping the call-to-action was sufficient.

“So you’re going to be brave and go talk to Blair and maybe it won’t help either of us and we’ll both swear off frozen yogurt for life. At least you’ll know you tried, though.”

“It would be a shame to lose FroYo, wouldn’t it? Here’s hoping you’re not the one giving me a ride back.”

April watched him walk up to the door, and it was time for step four: to not let her thoughts spiral as she waited. She figured that prayer never hurt and it would at least keep her occupied, as she set a timer for thirty minutes on her phone.

* * *

Sterling had just grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge when the doorbell rang. Her parents were still at the police station and Blair was upstairs, so she set down the glass and made her way to the door. She hoped it was something inconsequential, maybe a package that needed to be signed for, although a smaller part of her wished it was April with an apology and maybe a freshly baked rainbow cake.

Seeing Miles at the door was unexpected, but maybe that meant her twin (cousin?) could at least be happy. She knew something happened with them last night, although she hadn’t fully talked with Blair about it.

“Miles, can’t say I expected to see you here again so soon.”

“Can’t say I expected it either. This very feisty, short white girl basically blackmailed me into coming because her ex’s sister blamed her for my breakup with her and also promised to make my life a living hell if I outed you, by the way, which I would never.”

Hearing noise from the stairs, Sterling turned to see Blair leaning against the railing.

“So you’re only here because April Stevens of all people made you, Miles?” Blair asked.

“No, April gave me a little push but she was right when she said I wouldn’t be here unless I wanted to be. I never ever want to go on a double-date with you two Sterling, and I can’t tell you what to do, but she’s going to be sitting in her car outside for at least the next thirty minutes if you want to talk to her.”

A short burst of twin-telepathy later, and Sterling was leaving Blair and Miles inside the house as she made her way out to the car idling in their driveway.

* * *

It hadn’t been even five minutes when she heard footsteps outside her car. She knew men were bad at expressing their feelings, but really? Miles couldn’t even last five minutes talking with his ex? She resolved to ignore him as he knew their deal was at least fifteen minutes and tried to focus her mind back onto finishing her prayers.

She kept that focus as the door opened, but when Sterling’s soft voice said her name, she felt as if gravity no longer applied to her as her body jumped up from the seat.

“Sterling? I didn’t plan for this.”

“You didn’t plan for what, exactly? Blackmail? Loitering?”

“You wanting to talk to me. I had a six-step plan but I didn’t account for the possibility that you might want to see me. You do want to see me, right? You didn’t come out here to yell at me, I hope? Although I suppose you’d have the right to if you wanted.”

“April, no, I did want to talk. What did you tell Miles? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I could have easily shut myself into my bedroom and pretended that you weren’t here. Just like you could have easily gone back to being repressed but you decided to come out to a complete stranger in the hopes that it would help us.”

“I’m sorry by the way for outing you to him. I didn’t mean to, it just happened, but I told him—”

“Yes, you threatened him for me but you didn’t even try to protect yourself did you? After literally the most terrible night ever, I realized that maybe there were worse things than staying in the closet for a bit. I’m still mad about you flirting with Luke but I get it. We still need to talk but you’re here and I’m here and that’s got to mean something, right?”

April nodded then. It did mean something. She hadn't come up with a new plan yet but maybe with Sterling she didn’t need one.

**Author's Note:**

> This show is so dumb and yet I watched all of it in a day. After virtually every character ended the season unhappy, I wanted there to be a little bit of optimism on where things might go next.


End file.
